Material handling equipment is widely used in warehouses, and electric powered vehicles are continuing to become more popular for at least environmental and noise related advantages over gas powered vehicles. Electric powered vehicles also have advantages over manual powered vehicles relating to at least capacity, operator safety and efficiency. However, due to the high rotational speed of common electric drive motors, it has not been possible to use an electric drive motor to directly drive a drive wheel of a vehicle, such as a pallet truck. Typically, a transmission having a gear box containing multiple gears and lubricant is required in a drive system to reduce the input speed that will be used to rotate the drive wheel. The multiple gears and lubricant result in undesirable complexity, and cause the structure of the transmission to occupy a large space or volume, while making the sealing of the transmission difficult and susceptible to leakage. In turn, this leads to higher costs and greater difficulty in servicing the drive system of such equipment. In addition, to save space or disperse the volume required for componentry, it is common for a controller to be separately mounted to the vehicle in a location spaced from the drive motor and transmission. The separate mounting requires that the connection between the components be made via cables and harnesses. During use of such vehicles, the drive system often includes movement, such as when the drive wheel is used to steer the vehicle. This movement tends to cause the cables or harnesses extending between a separately mounted controller and the electric drive motor to wear and possibly become loosened.